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Cultural Invasion, Negative Knowledge, Self-Expression and the Prose Narratives of Papua New Guinea

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Cultural Invasion, Negative Knowledge, Self-Expression and the Prose Narratives of Papua New Guinea Cultural Invasion, Negative Knowledge, Self-Expression and the Prose Narratives of Papua New Guinea A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury by Steven Edmund Winduo University of Canterbury 1991 STATEMENT OF DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and believe, original except where acknowledged in the text, and that the material has not been submitted, either in whole or in parts, for a degree at this or any other university. //1 c~9;,:. /rit... :.... ~ .... :P.\J..i.~1.c..t.rJ) Steven Edmund Winduo 20 November, 1991 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this thesis could not have been possible without the assistance of many people. I will not even attempt to list them here, except to name a few who encouraged me in the crucial moments of writing my thesis. First and most importantly I am indebted to my principal supervisor, Dr. Howard McNaughton for his invaluable assistance, direction, and belief in my work, that without which I could never have pushed through to the end. I am most thankful for his positive criticisms, constructive comments and enlightening suggestions on the early drafts of my thesis to its final production. I would also like to thank Don Medley and Noel Waite, who in their own time looked at the early drafts of the thesis and offered constructive suggestions and comments. Both people with their partners Amanda and Keri offered me their warm friendship during the hectic moments of writing my thesis. For proof reading of the thesis I am grateful to Ann Shearer of the Overseas Students Office of the University of Canterbury. I wish also to acknowledge the use of much materials based on Nigel Krauth's excellent study of New Guinean Images in Australian Literature and his other works on Papua New Guinean Literature which I found extremely useful. However the entire work is original to the best of my knowledge and believe, except where acknowledged in the text. At this time too I wish to thank the Government and people of New Zealand. First for offering me a MERT scholarship with all its benefits to study at the University of Canterbury. Second for the friendly and conducive environment made possible for an excellent study. The staff and students of the English Department with whom I have had the opportunity to associate with have impressed me with intellectually stimulative and challenging ideas. As for additional financial support in the course of my study I am indebted to the Ministry of External Relations and Trade for a research trip to Auckland (1990), compassionate leave to Papua New Guinea (1990), this was also supported by the University of Canterbury Overseas Students Office, The University of Canterbury by way of a Hardship Grant and The MacMillan Brown Centre of the University of Canterbury. Partial financial support from the English Department and the Ministry of External Relations and Trade had made possible for me to travel to the University of Queensland for the De-Scribing Empire conference (1991), to which I am most thankful. The English Department has provided typing, printing and photocopying facilities which proved invaluable for much of the work in this thesis and other areas of scholarly interests. Many others have inspired and helped me over the years including those outside of the academic arena. I hope they will not be too unforgiving for not having their names mentioned here. It is their moral support, patience and encouragement which gave me the right determination, strength and courage. Steven Edmund Winduo University of Canterbury 20 November, 1991 CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION 2 PART ONE: We The Unwritten 12 CHAPTER I Imagining New Guinea. 13 II a. Colonial Conquest and Cultural Invasion (1884-1914). 19 b. Second World War and the Unimagined 23 New Guinea (1939-1959). c. Reluctant Colonial Writer (1960-1975). 25 III The Negative Knowledge. 31 IV a. Evolution of the Papua New Guinean Novel. 37 b. The Papua New Guinean Autobiographical 42 Narrative Tradition (1968-1985). PART TWO: We The Written 47 v Political Consciousness and Self-Expression: 48 I<iki' s Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime. VI The Crocodile and Cultural Fragmentation 58 VII Soaba's Wanpis: "Lusman" and "Wanpis" 69 as Outsiders in Papua New Guinean Society. VIII Double Conscience of Aimbe, the Pastor. 80 IX Ignatius I<ilage's My Mother Calls Me Yaltep: 92 Fictionalizing the Highlands Experience. x The Short Novels, the Textual Practice 105 and the Unfolding Historical Process. CONCLUSION 119 ENDNOTES 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY 132 1 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the imperialistic literary imaginings in New Guinea and the indigenous literature that has emerged in the last two and a half decades. The experiences of colonialism and the invasive role colonialism played in the cultural, social and religious life of the people of Papua New Guinea are the centre of discussion in this thesis. Cultural invasion made possible the setting up of colonial institutions which could maintain their power, control and dominance by forcibly conditioning the indigenous mind with a negative knowledge, and demanded the indigenous people to accept without protest, dissent, or resistance the colonial control, power and knowledge. In the imperialistic colonial discourse there was nothing human about the New Guinean, except that the New Guinean was part of the literary landscape the colonial writers explored for their own self and cultural identity. It is against this literature that the emergence of indigenous self-expression is founded. The emergence of the indigenous Papua New Guinean author is entwined with the social, political, cultural, and economical transition from being a colonial territory to an independent nation. The Papua New Guinean authors studied are aware of these experiences; this forces them to draw from their own personal experiences as much as possible. It is this feature of drawing from personal experiences that characterizes the Papua New Guinea narrative tradition as autobiographical. However the emphasis of this thesis is to determine, qualify and expose the literature of Papua New Guinea as a post-colonial literature. Theories of post-colonial literature are used frequently in this thesis, but not with the intent to obstruct one of the aims of this thesis: to analyse from within the literature of Papua New Guinea, which when closely analysed reveals it has its own influences from the oral traditions as well as from the indigenous social, cultural and linguistic contexts. 2 INTRODUCTION This research concerns the prose narratives, mainly novels, novellas, and autobiographies written by people who were born in Papua New Guinea. The literary works approached usually have a Papua New Guinean setting and contain fictional characters (except for Albert Maori Kiki's autobiography Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime (1968)) and situations whose social correlates, cultural milieu and linguistic continuum are immediately recognisable as Papua New Guinean. The books have all been written in the last twenty three years; their authors have been products of oral traditions, colonial condition and the post­ colonial situation. This thesis will show that the prose narratives by Papua New Guineans can be distinguished from other works written in English on Papua New Guinea. The early foreign writers' liberal and hilariously exotic or racist writings exist independently. The earliest known works were written by Johann David Wyss (1818), E. W. Cole (1873), Marcus Clarke (1874), Hume Nisbet (1888), Louis Becke (1897) and H.C. W. Watson (1835). The existence of foreign literature in Papua New Guinea has its own development and forcefulness. These authors have portrayed New Guinea according to their imaginations and fantasies. The writers who followed them portrayed New Guinea as a romantically exotic landscape where the test of nation-aggrandizing myths, white superiority myths, and colonial exploitation is considered as their prerogative. Writers formed around two important circles, those who wrote for the New South Wales Bookstall Company and those who wrote for The Bulletin. The themes and views of their writings varies. The post-war years produced a relatively small group of writers who were critical of the images produced in the works of the earlier writers. The Second World War, however, changed the kind of images which appeared earlier. More care and consideration was taken in describing the place, people and culture. The reminiscence of the war and the guilt realised after the war helped shape the new colonial image as a helping friend, sympathetic, pathetic and paternalistic. This remained the trend into the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The writers of this period, regarded as the de-mythologisers, went further to depict the 3 hopelessness and contradictions of the white man vis-a-vis the colonial administrator, patrol officer, teacher or priest. Yet the emphasis of this thesis is on the Papua New Guinean novel written by Papua New Guineans in the last twenty-three years following Kiki's autobiography, Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime (1968), Vincent Eri's The Crocodile (1971) and Paulias Matane's My Childhood in New Guinea (1972). There was much optimism about a tremendous output of similar works by other Papua New Guineans. Unfortunately, only short stories, plays, and poetry dominated the next four years. These were compiled in Ulli Beier's anthology Black Writing of New Guinea (1973). In the same year M. Greicus and Elton Brash edited another collection of short stories Niugini Stories (1973). The next Papua New Guinean book came out in 1974, Paulias Matane's Aimbe the Challenger, followed by Michael Somare's autobiography, Sana, in 1975. In 1976 several works appeared. An ambitious collection of three Papua New Guinean novellas by Benjamin Umba, August Kituai and Jim Baital was published as Three Short Novels from Papua New Guinea.
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